Roy Moore supporters in Alabama. Is Steve Bannon driving the Republican party over a cliff?
Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

1. Like Darth Vader, Steve Bannon is beatable

The former White House chief strategist has compared himself to the Star Wars villain, but this was the moment he dropped his lightsaber. In 2016, Bannon helped pull off one of the greatest election upsets in American history. But in 2017, he backed one of the worst Senate candidates in American history, making light of allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls, and went down in flames. The old playbook, such as blaming the media, did not work even in a Republican stronghold. Among those questioning Bannon’s judgment is likely to be Donald Trump, who was persuaded to throw in his lot with Moore – and who notoriously hates losing.

2. The Republican civil war is about to get even uglier

The Alabama special election had turned into a lose-lose situation and, unsurprisingly, Republicans lost. A Moore win would have been bad, saddling them with demands for an ethics investigation or expulsion and tarnishing the brand for years. But a Republican Senate defeat in Alabama for the first time since 1992 is hardly cause for celebration, reducing the party’s majority to 51-49 in the chamber. Divisions were painfully exposed by the failure to pass healthcare legislation. Now there will be soul searching and recriminations over this self-inflicted wound. Questions will be asked about Bannon’s undue influence on the party. Is he driving them over a cliff?

3. A pattern is emerging

Historically, the party that occupies the White House struggles in special and mid-term elections. In 2010, Democrats received what President Barack Obama called a “shellacking”. There is a now-growing body of evidence that, despite Trump’s ability to change the rules, this pattern is not only holding but becoming turbocharged. Republicans performed badly in Virginia and elsewhere last month. Now they have lost Alabama, which in sporting terms would be the equivalent of New Zealand losing to Jamaica at rugby. With Trump’s approval rating at a record low, a potential meltdown in the 2018 mid-terms awaits.

4. The anti-Trump coalition has been emboldened

Last month’s elections were dubbed “the revenge of the suburbs”, as women, minorities and university-educated voters joined to deliver a rebuke to Trump by voting in a new slate of female, African American and transgender Democrats. What happened in Alabama appears to confirm this trend. African Americans turned out in big numbers in one of America’s most racially divided states. Many women were appalled by the accusations against Moore. Suburbia, including establishment Republicans, again appears to have dealt a decisive blow.

5. Trump did indeed scramble the electoral map

Trump defied all conventional wisdom to win the presidency, turning some traditionally blue states red. But it cuts both ways. Democrats, who lost the white south in the 1960s, suddenly find that even a state such as Alabama is in play, albeit thanks to Moore’s uniquely negative characteristics. This will give fresh hope to progressives in cities such as Austin, Texas, Nashville, Tennessee, and other islands of blue surrounded by red. Paradoxically, at a moment when America is at its most divided since the Vietnam war, the battle lines are being redrawn.